The Maryland Bays were one of the best pro soccer clubs in America during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s during an era when the outdoor game was at a particularly low ebb in the U.S. Over the course of four seasons, the Bays posted a 79-31 record and won a national title in 1990. The 1991 Bays squad was perhaps even stronger, dominating the American Professional Soccer League with a 19-2 regular season record. But a stunning 1991 semi-final playoff defeat to the Albany Capitals prevented Maryland from defending its crown.

Bays forwards Philip Gyau and Jean Harbor won back-to-back APSL Most Valuable Player awards in 1990 and 1991. The club also featured U.S. National Team players Jeff Agoos, Desmond Armstrong and Bruce Murray.

The Bays split their games between UMBC Stadium in Catonsville and Cedar Lane Park in Columbia. The club also played a handful of games at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. The club consistently lost money every season. Co-owners John Liparini and John Koskinen announced the dissolution of the franchise in January 1992.

The Fort Lauderdale Strikers of 1988 to 1994 were the second incarnation of the famed American soccer club. (The brand name has subsequently been revived two more times). The original Strikers played in the North American Soccer League from 1977 through 1983 and were owned by the Robbie family, who also owned the NFL’s Miami Dolphins at the time. The NASL strikers attracted world class international such as West Germany’s Gerd Mueller, Northern Ireland’s George Best and Peru’s Teofilo Cubillas. The club was popular in South Florida and occasionally sold out Lockhart Stadium to the tune of nearly 20,000 fans in the late 1970’s.

But enthusiasm for the Strikers and the NASL more generally faded in the early 1980’s and the Robbies moved the club to Minneapolis in late 1983. In Minnesota the original Strikers soon transformed into an indoor team and dissolved in June 1988 after years of multi-million dollar losses. Meanwhile, the NASL went out of business in early 1985, leaving the United States without a major outdoor pro soccer league for the next three years.

The American Soccer League launched in 1988 to fill the pro soccer void along the East Coast. A number of former NASL cities joined and dusted off old their identities, including the Strikers, the Tampa Bay Rowdies and a new version of the Washington Diplomats. One promising sign was the return of the Robbie family to operate the Strikers in Fort Lauderdale. Several old Strikers fan favorites from the NASL era – now mostly in their mid-30’s – returned to the club as well, including Cubillas, midfielders Ray Hudson and Thomas Rongen and goalkeeper Arnie Mausser.

The Robbies entrusted the on-field product to long-time soccer executive Noel Lemon, another veteran of the NASL days. Lemon hired Wim Suurbier as Head Coach and the Strikers finished the 1988 debut season of the American Soccer League in first place. But the Strikers lost both legs of the two-game ASL championship series to the Washington Diplomats. The deciding loss came at home on August 27, 1988 before 4,257 fans at Lockhart Stadium. In the locker room following the match, an angry Noel Lemon cut Teofilo Cubillas, ostensibly for missing a team practice several days earlier.

“<Cubillas> is the biggest disgrace I’ve ever been associated with,” Lemon added after the loss. Cubillas would play a handful of games for the ASL’s Miami Sharks the following summer before his pro career came to a quiet end in 1989. The Peruvian World Cup hero is a fixture on Top 50 and Top 100 rankings of the best footballers of the 20th century.

It was an ignominious dismissal for one of the franchise’s all-time greats. Lemon’s outburst drew a public admonition from Joe Robbie, but Robbie’s health was in decline and his time with the Strikers was short. Robbie sold the majority interest in the Strikers to Lemon in early 1989 before the club’s second season. Joe Robbie would pass away in January 1990. His wife Elizabeth, founder of the original Strikers in 1977, died in 1991.

Long-time Striker Thomas Rongen replaced Wim Suurbier as Head Coach for the 1989. The Strikers defeated the Boston Bolts to win the ASL championship in August. In early September, the Strikers travelled to San Jose, California to play in a “national championship” match against the San Diego Nomads, the champions of the Western Soccer League. The Strikers prevailed 3-1. The Strikers would reach the ASL final for a third straight season in 1990, losing to the Maryland Bays.

After the Robbies left the picture in early 1989, the Strikers financial fortunes declined steadily. Noel Lemon was not a wealthy man and the club experienced cash flow problems, ultimately resulting in Lemon’s loss of the franchise in late 1991. The ownership turned over several times in the early 1990’s, including a period late in the 1992 season where the team became an owner-less ward of the league. Lemon sued to regain control of the club and fought for his reinstatement until the team’s demise following the 1994 season.

The Albany Capitals were a late 80’s/early 90’s professional soccer team in the capital district of New York. The club played in the American Soccer League, which was the highest level of professional soccer in the United States at the time, despite it’s very modest scale and budget. The ASL later changed its name to the American Professional Soccer League during the Caps final two seasons, as the result of a merger with the Western Soccer League in 1990. The team played in 55-year old Bleecker Stadium, the city’s Depression-era multi-purpose stadium.

The Capitals, owned by local property develop Armand Quadrini, were a shoestring operation. During the ASL’s first season 1988, the league salary cap was a meager $50,000 and the entire operating budget for the Capitals was reportedly just $250,000. Attendance was barely over 1,000 fans per game in 1988 and the Caps never drew more than 2,000 or a single match that year, although crowds would pick up slightly in the seasons to follow.

Despite the low budget, the Capitals managed to attract some interesting players over the years, mostly because there were just very few opportunities to play outdoor soccer in the United States at the time. U.S. National Team mainstay John Harkes made his pro debut with the club in 1989, playing alongside USNT teammates Brian Bliss and Mike Windischmann. Forward Chico Borja was a former New York Cosmos who earned most of this pay during the winter playing indoors, which is where most of the money was in American soccer during this era. Like Borja, goalkeeper Arnie Mausser was another North American Soccer League veteran playing out his final few outdoor seasons in the ASL. Future ESPN and NBC soccer broadcaster Glenn Davis also played for the Caps.

During the Capitals’ final season in 1991, the club advanced to the APSL Championship Series against the San Francisco Bay Blackhawks, despite a losing regular season record of 10-11. The Capitals won Game One by a score of 3-1, but dropped Game Two and the tie-breaking “mini-game” to lose the series. These proved to be the last matches the club ever played.

Rollins College men’s soccer coach Mark Dillon formed F.C. Orlando and the Orlando Lions in 1986 as an amateur club consisting mainly of local college players. Dillon put together an ambitious exhibition schedule for the young club, hosting foreign touring clubs as well as teams cobbled together from the wandering refugees of the recently defunct North American Soccer League (1968-1984).

After two years of this, the Lions got wind of plans to launch a new, budget-conscious East Coast-based pro league in 1988 to fill the pro soccer void left by the demise of the NASL. Dillon wanted to join the start-up American Soccer League and turn pro in 1988 but he needed a wealthy investor to meet the new league’s capital requirements. He found one in Tallahassee-based Colin Phipps, who took over ownership of the Lions while Dillon stayed on as the team’s head coach. The Lions were admitted as one of the American Soccer League’s eight founding franchises (four of which were in Florida) in October 1987.

Mark Dillon’s partnership with Colin Phipps didn’t survive the Lions’ first pro season. Dillon either resigned or was fired as coach midway through a losing campaign. The Lions, in fact, would suffer losing seasons in all three of their pro seasons from 1988 to 1990.

The Lions also struggle at the gate, averaging fewer than 3,000 fans per match at the enormous Florida Citrus Bowl in 1988 and 1989. In 1990, attendance dipped sharply to only 1,100 per game according to The Orlando Sentinel. The Lions threw in the towel and merged into the Fort Lauderdale Strikers franchise in January of 1991.

Mark Dillon reclaimed the Lions name and re-launched the team as an amateur club in 1992. This second version of the Lions competed in the United States Interregional Soccer League (USISL) until 1996.